This is my first FF post in a long while. I’d almost begun to think I was done with FF. Then the xmas season hit, and everywhere I look I see adverts for girl toys, especially dolls, and especially Barbie. So I thought I’d write about that.
When I was small, my parents gave me many toys. I had trucks and dinky cars for dumping dirt and racing, I had engineering toys to build cool things, I had paint sets and crayons and markers for making works of art, I had board games, I had GI Joe for parachuting from trees, I had bikes and Star Wars figures and stuffed animals and books. But I loved none as much as Barbie.
She was so glamourous, so beautiful. She had so many pretty clothes. She had hair I could braid and pin up and even cut. She had a face with makeup already drawn on (even though I often wanted her to have more, and one lucky Barbie got turned into Marilyn Monroe with a haircut and a black marker). She had feet that only fit into high heel shoes. She had a great car, and a dream house, and a little sister, and a couple of dogs, and horses, and a camper, and any kind of job she wanted. She had a stady boyfriend, too. Barbie had it all.
I stopped playing with Barbie when I was about 11 or 12. I sort of missed her for a while. But ultimately I was glad she was out of my life – Barbie had been a bad influence on me. I didn’t like sharing my many Barbie dolls, even though I had several. I always wanted more Barbies, and I would examine their faces at the store to see which one I thought was most beautiful – we all knew that not all Barbies were perfectly alike. I began to get more destructive with Barbie, pulling off their heads and switching their bodies for ones with straight arms or bent arms as the occasion called, and cutting their hair shorter and shorter, and putting more and more heavy makeup on them with markers, and burning their hair by putting them by the heater – the sizzling smell was yucky, so I didn’t do that too often. Eventually, Barbie and Ken didn’t get along anymore, and Barbie was getting kidnapped a lot, and would end up tied upside down and hanging from the railing. I had come to love-hate Barbie.
Barbie advocates say that she is a tabula rasa – an empty and blank slate onto which the imagination of the child can inscribe any set of circumstances. Barbie is only limited by the child’s imagination, and the makers of Barbie have created a whole world of possibilities for Barbie to participate in – and little girls to dream of being themselves one day. Barbie can do anything.
Well, not so. Barbie is not a tabula rasa – she is the epitome of femininity. She is very rarely brunette – and although Barbie now comes in all kinds of ethnicities and races, this was not the case years ago, and those aren’t really Barbie, are they, those dolls are named something else. So only blonde white dolls can be Barbie.
Of course, we all know how unrealistic Barbie is for young girls. She seems to have a lot of money for buying lots of things, yet she can’t hold a steady job and flits from career to career just as quickly as changing an outfit. She never has a day where she looks tired – she’s always perky and pert with that stupid smile plastered all over her face, and the makeup that is permanently painted on. She never gets any older – her hair never turns grey, her face never wrinkles, her breasts never sag. She never could get pregnant (at least not when I had her). She never gains weight. And we all know about the “if Barbie was a real woman, she’d be 7 1/2 feet tall and have a 26 inch waist and a 150 inch chest” or whatever. She never eats. Her arms are permanently bent or straight, and her legs bend apart in only one way. She is always athletic, never disabled. And her genitals are just how the world wants them – clean and tidy and tiny. Very odd.
Barbie is quite simply not real. Nor could she ever be real. Yet she is held up as a paragon of femininity, an unachievable ideal for young girls to mimic. She is a princess, a dentist, a lawyer, a movie star. She is demure and always smiling, always pleasing to the eye, ready for anything. She is heterosexual. She is patriarchy’s ideal tabula rasa, an always-already perfect female form onto which anything can be inscribed. All you have to do is buy her.
And what’s worse, she teaches little girls to be the same as her.
There are lots of great dolls out there for kids to play with. I recently heard about Amamanta dolls – antomically correct, multicultural, multi-sexual, multi-aged dolls that come in family sets or as singles. There are also Teach-A-Bodies dolls, which come as large as life-size. Families can be heterosexual or gay, and mother dolls can give birth and breastfeed. These dolls can be used as sex education guides, and are used in conjunction with police investigations for child victims of sexual abuse and as aids to child therapy. While no dolls are going to perfectly encapsulate every kind of family or person, these dolls are a much better option than Barbie, in my book.
So this holiday, I say, boycott Barbie. She’s no good for your children’s self-esteem, and she is a symbol of patriarchal capitalism in the extreme. Don’t teach your children Barbie’s lessons.
I never had a barbie. The only doll I remember was one of those big pink baby dolls. My rotten younger brothers had drawn blue ink genitales on it at one point. It never had any thing fancey to wear either. If i remember right it spent most of it’s life naked & tossed in a corner. We’d drag it out once in a while as a prop for whatever game we were playing. My brothers would have scorned me if I would of acted like a “real”? girl. There wasn’t a big gender seperation between us. We didn’t have any toys to seperate us (we had lots of animals to play with & a whole lot of outdoors)
& my mother didn’t stress femininity, either.
In second or third grade I wanted a doll that all the other girls were bringing to school. I thought it would make me accepted by the rest of the girls.(I was a real misfit) I don’t think I ever wanted anything more in my life. My popular cousin took pity on me & gave me an old one she had. Guess what? it didn’t work. I took the damn thing to school & those bitches still wouldn’t play with me. That was it for me & dolls.
My grandaughter (5 years old) wants one of those hideous BRATZ dolls for Christmas. Personally, I prefer Barbie, to those slutty looking things. I didn’t buy her one.
Weird, I never thought about it, but toys can have a lot of influence on shaping childrens minds. I think they are better off with less gender type toys then more. Less toys in general, really. You notice how toy ads really stress the gender thing? Girls & boys.
For me, Barbie was also an introduction to not having a lot of money. I don’t think my family was poor, but we were at the lower end of the middle class spectrum. I didn’t get Barbies, I got cheaper knock-offs; the only real Barbies I can remember owning were ones I saved up birthday and Chanukah money for. Most of my town was in a similar economic situation, so it wasn’t about a disparity between me and my friends or anything, it was just an introduction to crap that got a lot more noticable and a lot more frustrating as time went on.
I second hating the Bratz dolls — sorry, but no, I don’t think girls should be encouraged to embrace brattiness or misspelling. Gosh, how old fashioned of me.
I have always hated Barbie dolls. Growing up I was real tomboy (and still am to a degree) and when my neighbor girls (who were really into Barbie) would get me to play with them, I’d simply pop the heads off of their dolls and be bored. Their family wasn’t too thrilled about me doing that. I think the only dolls I had was one when I was real tiny and one after my sister died. I would much rather have played baseball with my dad or the neighbor boys, gone climbing trees and being outside than being stuck inside playing with dolls.
I have vowed to never ever let my daughter (when I have one) own a Barbie or an ugly looking doll that promotes little girls dressing like skanks. Although I’m not sure that will stop my in-laws from giving her one, I sure am not going to give into this hype.
I thank God that I’m 5’2″, small chested and real.
I hated Cabbage Patch Dolls. I thought they were ugly beyond what I could tolerate, and I didn’t like their weird names. All the other kids had them, and I didn’t. I had Barbies instead. I never really had dolls that I could pretend were my babies. I only had Barbies.
Yah, the Bratz are really nasty. I wouldn’t let my kids (if I had them) have those either.
L>T
yeah, I think the fewer toys the better too. Kids have so much crap these days, and all the new things coming out all the time just reinforce the lust for more. Kids need to get outside and run around and use their imaginations. Enough with the video games.
Reb
yes, it’s true – Barbies are expensive. I got a new one every year or so, usually for christmas. And all the crap that goes with Barbie is expensive too. And when you think about it, all that reinforces the idea that to be a woman means buying things. Capitalism likes women to buy things. Including toys that reinforce women buying things. Capitalism and patriarchy are bedfellows.
Gina
I had friends like you. I wouldn’t let them play with my Barbies!
I wish I was more tomboyish when I was young. I wasn’t very athletic, or co-ordinated. I could do a mean cartwheel, though! (I wonder if I still can?)
I say, if you don’t want your daughter (when you have one) to have Barbies or ugly dolls that promote little girls dressing like skanks, then make sure she doesn’t have them – even if it means telling your in-laws not to give them as gifts!
How close are you with this sixteen year old? How mature is she? I think that the book “Our Bodies, Our Selves” is a great book for every girl (especially one that is or is about to become sexually active with partners) to have, especially when you look at the lack of knowledge many girls (and boys) have of their bodies and health, but I can see how some people (re: right wing nut of a dad) may see this sort of a gift as inappropriate. Still, keep it in mind for things like a highschool graduation present perhaps. Books in general I think can be the best sort of gifts for provoking thought, maybe one on the basics of feminism, or perhaps a journal to encourage her own ideas on paper? Or some sort of art supplies (if she’s at all into that sort of thing?), or some other sort of non-image hobby supply? Do you live near by her? Maybe your gift could be spending an afternoon with her, taking her to a film with strong female characters and then coffee to talk about it? Or seeing a show of women’s art? Or a museum with any sort of exhibit on feminist issues or women’s accomplishments? I think that while books can help give girls “aha” moments or hobbies inspiration to be more than something pretty, it is mentorship and support that really help when the pressure is on to be what society expects you to be. I hope this helps !
Oops, sorry! This was definately posted under the wrong thread.. meant to put in in th “gift ideas” post…
What?
In the early 70s I had Hispanic Barbie. I named her Connie.
I was a big fan, later, of Buck Rogers, and liked Wilma Deering, who, at the time, seemed very Modern (although now I’m like GAG! over it). So I also had Wilma.
Connie and Wilma were SuperSpies against Russia (the big enemy back then).
They went on missions, impossible ones, and always escaped by the skin of their teeth. No Ken involved. In fact, if he ever was, he was usually the Arch Villain or Person in Need of Rescue.
My Barbies built Lincoln Log third-world villages, managed Wild West Ranches, established sucessful leadership for major countries (hey, we all had some wishful thinking during the Nixon years), and also managed to create fabulous wardrobes from scratch while living in a handmade house.
I grant you, back then, the accessories were extremely limited.
But we had fun and I look back fondly on our times together.
I kept my Barbies and this year, my kids will get them.
I will play together with them, and I imagine now, in this modern time, we will have some very interesting imaginative experiences wherein we create an alternative renewable energy source, (and knowing my daughters) run a wastewater treatment plant solely using solar energy.
I hated dolls. I never had a Barbie and never wanted one.
I swore I would never let my daughter have a Barbie. A few years ago, when she was 6, I bought her one. Princess Barbie, because not only was she into Barbies, she was into princesses. Sigh. Not how I pictured my life. She got a second Barbie as a hand-me-down, one who looked like she had had a hard life, had pretty skanky clothes, and who we called “Streetwalker Barbie”. Now, Streetwalker Barbie and Princess Barbie are married to each other, so the patriarchal capitalistic system hasn’t totally got her..
This is why I love my life, because my husband and I don’t play into the gender roles. In fact, he’s better at a lot of the stereotypical girl stuff than I am!
[…] Thinking Girl: Reflections On Barbie […]
I have so much to say on this one I actually wrote a post! (here)
Hi folks –
Rebel – that’s awesome!
Julie – thanks for your alternative perspective! I remember Buck Rogers too. You should go and read Sage’s post about Barbie, it sounds like you two have a similar perspective on her.
Sage – I love it when I inspire a post! Thanks for writing about this too! I loved reading about your perspective on Barbie. I don’t disagree with you – I think Barbie does bring out the ‘natural’ inclinations of children who play with her. I don’t think anything is a tabula rasa – everyone is situated in a particular way from before they are even born, because discourses about identity always attach, and because every little soul is unique. I’m more worried about the impact Barbie might have going in the other direction.
I grew up a tomboy, but I wasn’t allowed to play with the things I wanted to play with – GI Joe’s, transformers, star wars toys, train sets.
But I didn’t rebel. Instead, I made Barbie work for me. Like you, I often switched body parts, gave them new hairdos, etc. etc.
I always thought my Barbies were cool. They had mansions, and apartment complexes courtesy of my grandmother’s near empty basement. They dated drug dealers, and went to night clubs, did drugs, got arrested, had sex, had affairs.
My Barbies were black, or of mixed race, lesbians, gay men, bad parents, grandparents, rebellious teens, and it goes on and on.
I hear what you’re saying. From your post, we get the understanding that Barbie is a hell of a hallucinagen for our little girls. Not many people I’m sure grew up with the imagination and surroundings that I did – with it seems the exception of Julie and her Lincoln Logs. That’s great. I wouldn’t dare buy a Barbie in this day and age. When they ousted pregnant Barbie, i was done with them. So thank you for posting this wonderful blog. And hopefully women (and men) will start seeing the absurdity in the damn doll. I wrote about the Bling barbie just recently, and ended with a declaration for her demise.
Hi L.Monique
Thanks for stopping in, and welcome. Bling Barbie – yikes, I don’t like the sound of that one bit!
It’s cool to hear about how other people played with their Barbies. I remember making a conscious decision to stop playing with them. I think I was in grade 5, or maybe 6. 10 or 11 years old. I just felt like I was kind of bored, I kind of hated Barbie by that point, and I wanted to read all the time at that age anyway, and play my saxophone, and sing with my choir. So enough was enough.
Hi there,
I’m very happy to read this reflection, because I’m actually working with Barbies for photography.
I’am a man, and I’m a feminist (really), and I agree with a lot of your comments.
Barbie is not just a doll. She is a representation of what someone want you to be if you wanna be a good girl. In a sens, Barbie is a propagande.
That’s why I’m actually working with her, for a serie call “Lesson to be a good housewife”. One of the other shot is used for the Estogen Festival 2007, in Chicago. Another to illustrate a conference for body representation in Canade.
We can use this propagande for another one !!!
In a few time, I ll add a new thematic on my weblog, with Barbie’s shots. I ll be very happy to post a link to this article. So, I’ll probably contact you in a few weeks.
Best regards.
SB
PS :
For my Barbie realisation : http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephanebieganski/
For the weblog if you wanna join it : http://basin-street.blogspot.com/
See the digital film short “Work for Barbie” by London based visual artists Wyllie O Hagan, on YouTube now
Work for Barbie
Women work in factories to make and to buy objects that shape our children’s image of self.
Children are groomed to become objects.
Children are seduced by the objects and aspire to become a pretty doll.
Women Work
Film by Wyllie O Hagan
Music
“Children of the Soul Mountain”
Composer Chan Wai Fat –
Singer – Po Sun Yi
Wyllie O Hagan
http://www.youtube.com/wyllieohagan
http://www.wyllieohagan.com
[…] frequently, the blogosphere (particularly the feminist parts) comes alive with indignation about the latest toy for girls, and just how extreme girls’ introctination is getting. I agree, of […]
[…] well off, compared to a lot of the town. But at the same time (as I recalled while reading Reflections on Barbie over at Thinking Girl) basically every toy I had was a low-cost generic brand version of the one I […]
Barbie taught me to save, set a goal, and reach it. I saved my lunch money until enough to purchase my very first one at the age of 12. Never did I ask anyone to buy one for me. There had been a satisfaction in doing it on my own. When examining the doll, I had seen all the flaws. Never was it perfect in my view. Why would any female think it was an example of an attainable goal of beauty. Barbie taught me not to judge real females beauty by a TOY. The toys are inferior to the real ones. Toys are FANTASY escapes from the REAL world. I love model ships and planes though unable to swim and a phobia of extreme heights. I never had a female sibling to influence me. My parents were afraid that Barbie would make me less of a male in behavior and identity. This had no foundation. Barbie was used to be the mate to my GI Joe. This had been needed for me to play the role of boyfriend and husband. Barbie solidified my gender identity as a male. After decades, Barbies had never changed me. GI Joe never made me try to endanger my health to attain his muscular appearance. I knew it was only for entertainment. My parents had tried to prevent me from having Barbie by argument and action. This had caused me to react in a determined battle of wills. They were not using a basis of facts proven by my behavior. I loved hard work and being a male. Their actions caused me to become an avid collector over the years.
I understand all of these points. But to me Barbie is a fantastic influence- sure she is too “perfect” but thats what little girls want! They want someone to gush over and they want something to aspire to be, but it is just a phase- You name me 5 people who have been left with a completely ruined self-esteem and desperate need to be barbie just from playing with her. Barbie taught me that I could do whatever I wanted- a race car driver, astronaut, dentist whatever! I am a 15 year old girl and I have grown up normal, Barbie has not taught me to hate anyone, she has not taught me to hate myself, she hasn’t made me feel inadequate. She made me happy, she makes lots of little girls happy and I think if she is not doing THAT much damage let them play with her. Let them decide.
[…] is stated more succinctly in the Thinking Girl blog: titled Reflections on Barbie “…although Barbie now comes in all kinds of ethnicities and races, this was not the […]
[…] This is stated more succinctly in the Thinking Girl blog: titled Reflections on Barbie […]